Getting Things Done with Evernote: Nozbe Integration

For people looking to be more productive, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become the do-more-stuff bible. One of the crucial parts of the GTD system is a capture tool—a place to record every thought, idea and business card you come across.

According to Nozbe creator, Michael Sliwinski, Evernote is ideal for this. “For me, Evernote is the perfect ‘capture’ application. Whenever I’m on the go, and see something that sparks an idea, I can just take a picture or a note, and it’s immediately saved in Evernote.” That’s why Michael decided to use the Evernote API to develop an integration, he wanted to make his already excellent GTD tool even better.

The Integration

“A couple of months ago, as I was finishing my new apartment, I realized that I was putting everything in Evernote. I was essentially living in two apps, Evernote and Nozbe. I was using them both for GTD, and felt that there there should be a way to make them work together.” A little development, and here’s the result.

The key to the integration between Nozbe and Evernote is that Evernote has essentially replaced the Notes section of Nozbe. When you link your Evernote account to your Nozbe account, Nozbe automatically checks for notebooks or tags in Evernote that match projects or contexts you have in Nozbe.

Here’s Nozbe’s video of the integration:

How it Works

First, link your Evernote and Nozbe accounts from within Nozbe. Next, create a note in Evernote with a tag (or tags) that matches a Nozbe Project or Context name. By doing so, your notes will automatically show up in your Nozbe account within the appropriate Project or Context. Nozbe does the same thing for Evernote Notebook names.

In Michael’s case, he had a Project in Nozbe called “My Flat.” When he tagged his note in Evernote with “My Flat,” the note appeared in the Notes section of the Nozbe project. If you then edit a note in either application, changes automatically (and incredibly quickly) get synchronized.

The integration with Nozbe means that Evernote users can take advantage of Nozbe’s great task management, which is perfect for the GTD fans out there. Now, keeping your tasks and your notes in one place is easier than ever. Create notes in Evernote using your computer, phone, and email; and they will automatically show up in Nozbe—you can even add pictures, files, and anything else from Evernote right into your task list.

More Goodies: 15% OFF!

The folks at Nozbe have been kind enough to give Evernote users a 15% discount off of a Nozbe account! Just use the coupon code EVERNOTE when you sign up for Nozbe to get your discount.

The Evernote API

Join Nozbe and over a thousand other developers that are using the Evernote API to build powerful new applications. Check out the growing number of available integrations and get started on creating your own.

To bad they don’t offer a free subscription like Evernote does. I’m not going to pay for a GTD app/web-service when I can get it for free at many other sites, including Toodledo, which has an iPhone app, and many other ToDo Apps support it.
Nozbe is nice, but I but paying for it is pointless when there are free alternatives out there.

Honestly Evernote’s team should look forward making evernote more GTD friendly by itself. Paying two services and articulating them is making things … too complex. In Evernote I am looking for a tool to organize my notes and helping me do more things.

Why should Evernote work on making itself more GTD friendly? Despite what GTD zealots may think, most of the world is not using GTD and many productivity experts have issues with some of the weakness in the GTD system. It’s not my intention to get into a debate about the merits of GTD, but I’m constantly amused by these kinds of demands from GTD supporters. Maybe the GTD rights-owners should make it one of their “next actions” to consider building GTD-specific software instead of expecting every developer to add GTD functionality to their apps.

Adam, I’m assuming your question isn’t rhetorical. Evernote + Task Lists/Reminders would be a KILLER APP. Evernote + Nozbe already is, but it’s WAY too expensive for what it does. $90 per year is more than what Apple charges for getting EVERY SINGLE MAJOR UPGRADE to its ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM. Software-as-a-service is a great idea, but not when vendors take everybody to the cleaners on the pricing. $45 per year for Evernote is TOLERABLE, but ONLY because it has built-in OCR for uploaded images.

Evernote is a perfect GTD collection tool, and Nozbe is a GTD powerhouse with easy-to-use to-do lists and projects. We wanted to make it best of both worlds.

Scionwest – Nozbe offers a free service, with up to 5 projects and 5 contexts. Our new iPhone app will also integrate with Evernote’s iPhone app. You can choose a free to-do list or even a piece of paper… or you can pay an equivalent of one cup of coffee per month ($3.5 dollars) for a seamless integrated GTD solution with Evernote that works and really helps you get things done.

It’s all about convenience and real productivity, you know

I’m a long time Evernote user and of course Nozbe power user, so I really wanted to have the two services integrated, as did my users

Michael, Nozbe is RIDICULOUSLY expensive for what it does. See my previous comment. No current offering by Nozbe is $3.50 per month. The minimum cost is over twice that. And even if it were only $3.50, ENTIRE PROFESSIONAL OPERATING SYSTEMS (Windows 7, OS X) cost less than what you’re charging for a glorified task list.

@MB Grow up. If you don’t like Nozbe, don’t buy it. You have the right to opt out. You also have the right to share your uninformed (you don’t use Nozbe, do you?) opinion of its cost versus utility.

You /don’t/ have the right to throw a public tantrum to persuade a business to stop selling its product as if — in addition to the responsibilities to develop a product and *gasp* try and recoup those costs and *double gasp* maybe even turn a profit — they have the additional responsibility to throw in the towel when you’ve decided their product pricing offends your naive sensibilities of what is fair and right in the world.

Actually, I’m wrong. You /do/ have that right. And I have the right to ridicule you for exercising it.

Sorry to be soo late in adding my comment but I completely agree with Toolbear – Nozbe and Evernote are 2 completely different products, both fully functional on their own. The fact that Nozbe created an integration – at their own cost is a bonus both those that want to use the 2 products in their GTD system.

Maybe Nozbe is a bit expensive but maybe it’s not – its up to you to decide if it’s of value to you and you will not lose anything in your continued use of Evernote if you decide not to use Nozbe.

I am going to but Nozbe for a couple of months and see if it helps me – I think that it will. I currently use my own software to manage my GTD system but its not integrated with my iPad or iPhone and I know how much it will cost me to do that integration – a lot more than €10 per month

06/23/2011 00:41AM
Sorry for repeat – I did not read the post before sending and have now just notices some typos – corrected below

Sorry to be so late in adding my comment but I completely agree with Toolbear – Nozbe and Evernote are 2 completely different products, both fully functional on their own. The fact that Nozbe created an integration – at their own cost is a bonus to those that want to use the 2 products in their GTD system.

Maybe Nozbe is a bit expensive but maybe it’s not – its up to you to decide if it’s of value to you and you will not lose anything in your continued use of Evernote if you decide not to use Nozbe.

I am going to try Nozbe for a couple of months and see if it helps me – I think that it will. I currently use my own software to manage my GTD system but its not integrated with my iPad or iPhone and I know how much it will cost me to do that integration – a lot more than €10 per month

I agree with @Rigden – Evernote really needs to become more GTD friendly on its own. Namely, through allowing direct links to notes that can be embedded within Things, OmniFocus, or other leading GTD apps. This is functionality that users have been clamoring for for over a year.

This post piqued my interest nonetheless, and even though I’m pretty much committed to Omnifocus a this point, I took a cursory look at Nozbe. Their app in the App Store has not been updated in over a year and has many bad reviews – not a good sign. The fact that it’s a paid service to use it in any meaningful way means it’s a no-go for me, I already own OmniFocus and Things.

It’s great that the API is out there for developers to use, and some of these integrations are interesting, but it would be preferable to have something lower tech – absolute links that can be used anywhere – within GTD apps, or any document for that matter. I hope this feature is still on the horizon.

I agree with those who ask EN –which I love–to just make it easier to intgrate with Things or just offer really good To Do list management tips. I found one on Carsons’ blog about setting up a search but haven’t quite figured out how it will work.

I have a premium account. I can log into it via the web, but I can no longer sync to it using windows desktop Evernote3.5 or sync via Awesome note for the Ipod touch…..can anyone help? Evernote does not have a e-mail to send questions to and the forum questions don’t cover this problem. I can’t use what I’m paying for….please help.

Hi Jeremy – I had the same problem (if you are in fact getting the “failed to synchronize” pop-up in the lower right corner), and also had trouble finding a solution that worked in the forums, UNTIL: I came across the advice to uncheck “Work Offline” in IE – what an aggravating POS, I really hate how I find that checked with no explanation. But once I unchecked it, EN started synchronizing fine again instantly. HOPE that helps… take care.

I agree with the others who have said that Evernote should be adding this functionality directly to Evernote. The closest it gets is having a to-do item that isn’t even usable from the mobile interfaces. It’s hard enough keeping a handle on your own “cloud” data nowadays without integrating and linking services from separate companies.

Come on, Evernote: don’t let these other companies do your work for you. Make Evernote better and put these companies out of business! Here are three things that would set you up for much success in the future:

1. Completely redesign your web interface. Look to others for examples, like Google Notebook (a shame it was dropped), UberNote (their interface is snappier and more featureful than yours), and Toodledo (Evernote ought to be able to do everything Toodledo does).

2. Stop all development on your 3.5 Windows client using .NET. .NET is a giant mess and is not leading your software into the future. Switch to Qt4 and your software will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux with little-to-no modification, will be strongly future-proofed, and will make your software more powerful.

3. Add some serious new features to your service on the basic level, like GTD-ish organizational abilities, tasks, subtasks, projects, goals, calendar tools, etc. Evernote seems stagnant, other than its API parterning, which is merely outsourcing progress.

Love the comments here. Thanks everyone for their feedback. Nozbe’s iPhone app is due to receive a major 2.0 update (in 2-3 weeks in the Appstore).

As to making Evernote more GTD friendly, etc.

I’m biased but I believe their approach is perfect. They are the best note-taking app in the world now and this is what I dig about them. I love their iPhone app, too. They’ve nailed the note-taking and I’m actually using Evernote as my primary information hub on my computer.

Note taking is their core. And they should stick to it.

The integration with my Nozbe just proves that the apps should focus on what they do best and find synergies and I think this synergy works pretty well for us… and most of us for our users.

And we’ll be improving it. We’ve just posted an update on our blog how we keep on improving the integration:

This is great stuff — I do wish evernote could intergrate with a calendar in a simple way, though (Meaning, attach notes to google calendar, for example): just for that I’d pay…..well, I’d pay gold. That in and of itself would solve all my GTD wants (without changing the core of what evernote does/wants to do).

I would realy like to see an evernote integration into Things, that would be the solution for me. But it is not up to evernote to make this happen. Evernote should stay focused on their core features but with a open api. Let them focuse on increasing capture features and richeness. It is up to for example culture code to integrate Evernote access and provide gtd features.

I wondered that myself. It means that if you have (or add) a Notebook in Evernote with the same name as a Project in Nozbe, and add Notes to the Evernote Notebook, they will appear as attachments to the Nozbe Project. I tried it and it works.

Why does everybody go nuts over paying for something? Doesn’t anybody here work? and get paid? Why should these people work for free. I sure as heck don’t. If you add up the price for Nozbe, Evernote,etc.it’s = to almost nothing. Anybody that’s been around computers for a while realizes that software today is ridiculously cheap. In the “old” days you paid $300+ for a PIM with no trial, no nothing. If you didn’t like it or it didn’t do what you needed it to do you or just crashed all the time you just lost $300. No refunds, no recourse. You didn’t even have the internet to complain about it. Just be thankful these guys are willing to take the risk to write software, let you have a free trial, hoping someday to make some $. DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated in any way with any of these companies, hell I’m not sure I’m even affiliated with myself.

I recently started using Evernote and its “free” storage space is severely limited. I have over 4000 pics on my iphone and have used only half the iphone capacity. I uploaded 166 pics from the iphone to Evernote, used 99% of Evernote upload capacity and recieved a warning notice that Evernote utilization would be restricted until the next cycle. From a practical standpoint Evernotes data restriction allows only 2% utilization of my iphones capacity per month. With this strict data limitation, it is more functional to use my iphone, ipad, and laptops and “Forget Evernote”.

Mike, sorry to hear that Evernote isn’t working out for you. Evernote is not meant to be a free iPhone backup service. If you would like to get more monthly storage, I recommend becoming an Evernote Premium subscriber for $5/month. That will give you 1GB of new notes each month.

I know someone whose organisation uses Evernote with Nozbe and they like it. No complaints at all in fact lots of likes. We got Dooster at the beginning of the year and we like that one. It’s made us more cohesive.

We looked at about ten collaboration software packages when we chose Dooster and I don’t remember Evernote/Nozbe. I’ve no doubt it’s very good. The competition is stiff and one of the senior partners finally decided which one we would have. I just can’t understand people complaining about paying for software. Even though Dooster have a free trial, it’s not forever but by that time you pretty much want to give something in return for the excellent results it gives.

Love reading all the comments and I hope this is the appropriate forum to ask this question. I use Evernote (and love it) and am
looking for a calendar app that syncs between iPad, Android and Windows; in other words, an Evernote calendar. From reading the postings, I can tell I’m not as sophisticated about this stuff as you all are. Does anyone have any thoughts? I’d be willing to pay for it if it’s reasonable. Thanks in advance.

I am trying to use Evernote as a kind of a box to drop things and interchange notes between one collegue and me in one joint project. We both live a bit far away from each other. The system is perfect except for one thing. We would love to have a calender integrated to set notes in the future, have reminders, meetings and so on. Or at least being able to see our notes in a cronological order, or arranged in a calender like many android diary programs. Having windows in my company and Mac in his doesn´t help at all in the solutions given above. Thanks